


Paying the Water

by Daegaer



Category: Eight Days of Luke - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: 1970s, Friendship, Gen, Goats, References to Norse Religion & Lore, School Trip, Water Spirit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28029132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: While on a school trip David meets a boy with a disquieting story.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Paying the Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelofmort](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelofmort/gifts).



> Thank you to my beta-reader, Scribblemoose!

David zipped his parka all the way up to his chin and sighed as he looked at the forbidding building before him and back down at the piece of paper held against his exercise book.

 _Mapledurham watermill was first built in which year?_ That was obviously a trick question because they'd already been told there had been a mill there before the Normans arrived, and that some of what was there now had been built in the fifteenth century, with bits being added pretty much every century afterwards. Maybe he should answer, _Which mill?_

"I'm telling you," Clark said loudly behind him, "This is the mill from that new movie about the Germans invading! You should see it, there's this scene where a girl falls in and one of the Germans jumps in to save her, but he's drowned and his uniform is torn by a massive wheel thing, and that's how everyone knows they're Nazis!"

"Wouldn't they know from them speaking German?" Alan said.

"They're not speaking German, idiot. They're doing it sneaky. It was only after they got revealed that it was all rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat."

David walked away from them, looking at the water in the old mill race, trying to find the wheel that Clark had mentioned. There wasn't one. Maybe Clark was wrong and his silly film had been made somewhere else. He went back to looking at the questions on the mimeographed sheet of paper; he should probably put down that the mill was built in the fifteenth century. Mr McKenzie meant the building, not what was there before. 

"I should check," he muttered.

"Check what?"

He looked up to see a boy a couple of years older than him leaning against the wall. He was looking sceptically from David to the other boys as if he'd seen far too many field trips and wished to see no more.

"When the mill was built," David said. "My history teacher has a questionnaire he wants us to fill out."

The boy rolled his eyes. "Yeah. They all do. They want you to say the 1400s, but it was first put up in the 700s. Not a nice, big building like this, though." He patted the wall. "You're deeply interested in the art of milling, are you?"

"Not really, but it's nice to get away from school. Do you work here?"

"Yeah," the boy laughed, and held out a hand as sun-browned as if summer had come early to the village. "Foss, you can call me."

David heard the other boys going off to the next thing they had to look at and felt a pang of irritation. Talking to someone who worked on the estate would be more interesting and give him better information for the worksheet than listening to Clark making machine-gun noises, but he really –

"I heard your friend talking about that film," Foss said. "That actor really did drown, you know. They had to hush it up."

"What? You're joking!" David said, in astonishment. "That's terrible!"

"Want to hear the details?"

"Well – yes."

Foss grinned and sat at the edge of the mill race, beckoning David over. He patted the grass beside him and even though the spring sunshine wasn't very warm and the grass looked a bit damp, David sat.

"They had so many safety procedures, you wouldn't have believed it. They made a new wheel, but it was a fake, it wasn't attached to anything inside. Look, you can see where they put it up. They made sure that there were no weeds or anything to for it catch on, but it was really quite insulting to make a fake, don't you think? People have milled on this spot for so many hundreds of years, and they wanted to make it just a background for their entertainment." He shrugged. "They rehearsed so carefully, and of course it was a stunt man who went in. He came out just fine. Then at last they dipped the actor in and pulled him out on their stupid wheel; lungs full of water and dead as a doornail. No one could believe it. They actually praised his acting at first."

"And you saw all this?" David said, wide-eyed.

"I did. I was there from start to finish."

"But what do you think happened?"

"Well," Foss said, leaning close. "Places like this, where people have been working a kind of magic over water – and don't let anyone tell you getting your daily bread out of grass isn't magic – they can be chancy. Haunted. I think something under the water saw its chance and pulled that poor fellow down." 

"That's awful," David said. "Why would anything do that – and how, when he was surrounded by all his friends, and making a film?"

"You don't seem surprised at the idea in general," Foss said. "I'd usually have someone saying, _But it's the modern world, no one believes in that old rubbish!_ Anyway, was he really safely surround by his friends? Seems to me that he was all alone, one little human, down there in the water." He grinned, widely and meanly.

David suddenly thought that he couldn't hear his friends at all, and that the birds and insects had gone very quiet. The water in the race was flowing much faster, swirling and circling, like an animal ready to leap on its prey. Now that he was paying attention he could see that the skin on Foss's arms and face was as smooth and fine as eelskin, like he was something that lived its life in water. Foss was watching the realisation growing on his face, and was starting to laugh. His teeth looked sharper than David had noticed at first.

"Would you like something to eat?" David said in panic, and pulled out the sandwiches wrapped in wax paper that Astrid had made him. He shoved them at Foss, who took them in what seemed genuine amusement.

"What are they?"

"Ham."

"Not my favourite, but thank you."

"What is your favourite?"

"Go on, guess." Foss laughed louder, his mouth full. "I'm not saying," he said at last. "But it's hard to get around here. You'll do fine instead."

"I might have something else you'd like –" David said, and as Foss made a _Go on, then_ gesture, he rummaged in his bag until his hand closed on the matches. The first caught, despite his hand shaking and Luke strolled round the corner, still looking a little older than him, his legs looking longer now, the very faintest shading of gold outlined against his jaw when he turned his head. The birds were singing again, which was a very great relief. 

"Feeding someone who isn't me?" Luke said reprovingly. "What's going on?"

"You have got to be kidding," Foss said, hastily swallowing the last of the sandwiches. "This is why you weren't acting surprised?"

"Luke," David said, "Can you take me away from this boy, please?"

"Not so fast," Foss snapped. "He separated himself from other humans willingly to keep me company, and I haven't been paid."

"I gave you my lunch."

"Ham sandwiches? _Fine,_ " Foss said, and struck quickly, grabbing David's hand and biting it.

"Let go!"

"Let him go," Luke said. "David, come here."

"Those stupid sandwiches have had their fair price," Foss said. "Maybe I want to keep _him _. No one in this century has any idea of what to give me – but here you are, Luke. You could pay."__

__Luke glared at him, then shrugged._ _

__"All right. David, I'll be back soon."_ _

__"Luke , please –"_ _

__"You'll be fine! If he even breathes wrong at you his mill race will be as dry as bone for ever."_ _

__"Yeah," Foss said, leaning back. "Like water worries too much about fire."_ _

__"I have plenty of giants who owe me favours," Luke said. "Touch my friend and any water that could come _near_ your mill race will be forced away into a new course."_ _

__He was gone. Foss raised an eyebrow at David._ _

__"You should have said. I'd have gone after someone else. Here, let's see your hand, I promise I won't do anything to it."_ _

__He wrapped both of his brown hands around David's injured one and the pain ebbed away._ _

__"You can't go around drowning people!"_ _

__"I'm not listening to lectures on moral behaviour from someone who just called in Luke as a rescuer. I'm fair, I pay my dues; If you take up music, you'll find you can tune instruments better with that hand. You know, Luke would give you up for a shiny new plaything as soon as look at you."_ _

__"He'll be back for me," David said. He took the matches and defiantly struck one, and was almost immediately shouldered aside by Luke, who was being pulled hither and yon by a very large, very annoyed billy goat._ _

__"Blast you, you stupid creature!" Luke yelled as the goat pulled him in a complete circle and tried to headbutt him. "Stop it, or you'll be sorry!" He tried dragging the goat over to Foss and David, with little success._ _

__"I've heard you've used different methods of pulling goats where you wanted them to go in the past," Foss said. He plucked a stalk of grass and chewed idly on it as he watched the show._ _

__Luke gave him a burning glare and a few lines of something that David thought might be something like Swedish. Finally the goat was at the side of the mill race and Luke shoved it up right beside Foss where it stood quietly, if malevolently. He stood to look it over._ _

__"It's good quality," he said reluctantly. "A proper price."_ _

__David shouted in shock as Luke grabbed him and pulled him back. Foss looked at them both, and then out of nowhere, a heavily decorated fiddle was in his hands._ _

__"You could have him, one half-grown child," Foss said, "Or you could learn something new. Which is it to be, Luke?"_ _

__To David's horror, Luke's hands on his shoulders loosened, as Foss drew the bow across the strings and at the sound of the music the pace of the water in the race increased, and the birds sang louder, the trees shook harder in the breeze and it seemed very hard to keep from dancing. Then Luke closed his hands tight again and Foss stopped playing._ _

__"I'm going now, with my friend," Luke said. His voice was firm and the grip of his fingers was completely secure._ _

__Foss made an old-fashioned bow, stepped out over the water, and he and the goat were gone. Luke tugged David back up the path._ _

__"Let's get you back to the others. And you can help me think of a plan to get that goat back."_ _

__"Do we need to?"_ _

__"I had to get my hands on the first goat I could think of," Luke shrugged. "It's one of Thor's prize pair. He adores them; at least they're hard to kill. It'll be fine, but in a really bad humour. We're going to need a plan."_ _

__"Have you got one?" David said in trepidation. He shoved away the memory of Luke's fingers loosening their grip, held tight to the thought that he had been what Luke had chosen._ _

__Luke grinned. "I always have a plan! First, we're going to need about fifty foot of rope braided from a woman's golden hair, so we'll creep into Mrs Fry's room –"_ _

__Luke still coming up with ever-wilder ideas, they vanished around the corner, in search of the other boys, leaving the sound of the laughing water behind._ _

**Author's Note:**

> Scenes from the 1976 film _The Eagle has Landed_ [were shot at Mapledurham watermill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle_Has_Landed_\(film\)#Shooting). The film was released in the UK in March 1977.
> 
> Foss is a [Fossegrim](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossegrim), a water spirit associated with music, waterfalls and mill races, connected with other types of spirits that might drown humans.


End file.
